Cornell University's Special Collections includes the Stockbridge Indian Papers. The finding aid, including an introduction to this remarkable set of documents, is available online.
Item 38 of the Stockbridge Indian Papers is a July 10th, 1844 letter from Jeremiah Slingerland to his uncle John W. Quinney. Slingerland was a student at Bangor Theological Seminary at Bangor, Maine at the time.
How did the young Slingerland interpret the history - as well as the current state - of his people, the Stockbridge Mohicans? Well, you'll see, because I'm going to quote him at length. Do I completely agree with him? No, not by a long shot. The fact is, Jeremiah Slingerland didn't have access to the books and papers that I refer to in my posts. So, think of his historical discussion as one part history and several parts theology. One possible explanation for the hard times of the Stockbridge Mohicans was that they were sinners being punished. That is not my view, but it was the view of a young Jeremiah Slingerland. I think his viewpoint changed and evolved at least to some extent as he got older and became involved in tribal politics himself. Anyway, as promised, here's how Jeremiah Slingerland interpreted tribal history in 1844 as the Citizen versus Indian partisanship began:
Our people have sinned and God is punishing them by allowing a fractious spirit to rise among them. They have had superior privileges but they have abused them. They have had excellent teachers but they have quarreled with them. I look back upon their past history and what unnumbered favors have covered their westward march. I cast my eye backward to 1734, to behold among them the first missionary. He toils, wears out his life and dies, yet our people feel no gratitude. Another comes and fills his place - now our people are honored by the presence & instructions of one of the most eminent divines New England ever produced. [Illegible] Edwards. But still our people know it not. Thus has the Lord honored them in furnishing teacher after teacher until, I fear, he has now almost given them up to themselves to bring about their own extinction. May he have mercy upon them and spare them!
Once again, the quote and Slingerland's thinking reflects a dearth of historical knowledge. They didn't have the internet back then. They didn't have a lot of books or even cheap and plentiful paper like we do now.
But even in our own times, even in the information age, when so much historical data is out there, people still have a hard time leaving their ideological biases out of how they interpret history. To this day, many historical accounts are still distorted by one belief system or another. But the other extreme might be just as bad. History might risk losing its humanity if scholars manage to take all the subjectivity out of it.
